JET Alumni Author Showcase

JET Alumni Author Showcase: Kelts, Kennedy and Weston

(Reception to follow)

On March 22, JETAA NY is pleased to present three great authors — Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06) and Robert P. Weston (Nara-ken, 2002-04) — who will discuss their books, the craft and business of writing and how their JET experience fits into the picture.

NOTE: Event limited to 100 people. Reserve your space by RSVPing to: authors /at/ jetaany /dot/ orgPlease include in RSVP: First and last name and indicate whether you’re a JET alum (including years and prefecture) or a friend of JET.

$10 in advance ($15 at the door) for Friends of JET (i.e., everyone else) (Payment to be made via PayPal. Details will be sent after reservation is made.)

Come for an afternoon of entertainment, education and schmoozing! Meet other JET alums! Reconnect with your JET roots!

About the Authors

Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99) is the half-Japanese author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US (www.japanamericabook.com), published by Palgrave Macmillan in the U.S. and Europe, and in Japanese by Random House Kodansha. An updated and expanded paperback edition was recently released. He is also a professor at The University of Tokyo, Sophia University and the University of the Sacred Heart Tokyo, a contributing writer and editor for A Public Space and Adbusters magazines, and a columnist for The Daily Yomiuri. He is the editor in chief of Anime Masterpieces, an anime lecture and screening series, and his writing appears in numerous publications in both the U.S. and Japan. His forthcoming novel is called ACCESS. Kelts divides his time between New York and Tokyo. You can follow his activities on his blog at japanamerica.blogspot.com.

James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06) is the author of THE ORDER OF ODD-FISH (Random House / Delacorte Press 2008), a fantastical young adult comedy that was one of the Smithsonian’s Notable Books for Children 2008. Booklist praised ODD-FISH as “hilarious . . . readers with a finely tuned sense of the absurd are going to adore the Technicolor ride” and Time Out Chicago described it as “a work of mischievous imagination and outrageous invention.” After completing a double major in physics and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, James worked as a junior high school teacher and computer programmer. He has trained in improvisational comedy at Second City and ImprovOlympic and plays bass in the Chicago art-punk band Brilliant Pebbles, which has been described variously as “melodramatic video game music,” “moon-man opera,” and “gypsy sex metal.” James was an ALT at Oyodo Senior High School in Nara-ken from 2004-2006. He lives with his wife (and, come May, daughter) in Humboldt Park in Chicago. You can follow his activities via his blog at http://jameskennedy.com.

Robert P. Weston (Nara-ken, 2002-04) is the author of the innovative, award-winning children’s book, Zorgamazoo (Penguin Books 2008), chosen by Booklist magazine as one of the ten best debuts of 2008. Rob’s fiction has appeared in literary magazines on both sides of the Atlantic and has been nominated for the Journey Prize in Canada and the Fountain Award for Speculative Literature in the United States. He holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives in Toronto. His blog, featuring arts and literature commentary as well as audio, is wayofthewest.wordpress.com. To listen to a reading from Zorgamazoo, go to http://wayofthewest.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/zorgamazoo-chapter-one-part-1/#comment-14.

Special thanks for laying the groundwork for the event to JetWit.com, a free online resource for the JET alumni community of writers, interpreters and translators, and the Writers Interpreters Translators (WIT) Group, and also to Kinokuniya Books(6th Ave. between 40th & 41st Streets in New York) for providing books for sale for the event.